


Karen Rescues an Alien

by muskoxen



Series: Aliens in New York [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: AU obviously, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Baby Groot (Marvel), Canon Divergence – Post–Avengers: Infinity War (Movie), Comedy, Fluff, Kastle adjascent, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-25 19:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13219245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muskoxen/pseuds/muskoxen
Summary: She’s walking through the Azalea Garden when she spots him. The walking bush guy from the New Incident.That's how Karen Page ends up with an alien in her purse and a Google search history with terms like "S.H.I.E.L.D phone number" and "How to contact Tony Stark."Or, Baby Groot gets lost in New York, and Karen Page helps him get home.COMPLETE. Now with 100% more Frank Castle and bonus Foggy Nelson.





	1. The Talking Bush

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this came from, but there's only a chapter left and it made me smile when I was writing it so there you go. Beta'd by me and Grammarly, so shout out if there's any glaring problems that interrupt your reading pleasure.
> 
> Contains: Groot, vague speculation for Infinity War and The Punisher, New York geography gleaned from Google Maps, and Karen Page meeting yet more superheroes.
> 
> Also, I just remembered that Groot grows up in the extra scenes in GotG Vol. 2, but let's just pretend he's still little. Sound good? Good.

She’s walking through the Azalea Garden when she spots him. The talking bush.

It took her three hours to get over to the Bronx that morning, only to be stood up by the escaped Church of the Saved member. They were supposed to meet, talk over how Reverend Samuel Smith changed his life and not for the better. But then one hour in the Ornamental Conifers section of the New York Botanical Gardens turned into two and she knew Jimmy Navarro had stood her up.

Hopefully, he was okay. Hopefully, he just got too scared.

But at that point, Karen was pretty frustrated which was just so typical. Here she is, in one of the most beautiful places in New York, at the end of a truly hellish month. And instead of relaxing, she’s stewing.

The latest Incident, which the _Bulletin_ had tried to call the Takeover but that never caught on – instead it was now the New Incident – had pretty much brought the city to a standstill. The latest aliens to decide to invade New York (and that was an insane thought) hadn't come from the sky like last time.

No. Near as Karen could parse from the garbled witness accounts, vague official reports, and thousands of social media posts, this time the invasion started underground. And it was still ongoing, in isolated pockets of violence in the subway and sewer tunnels. Penn Station was so much rubble, the subway was completely offline even a week later, and Lincoln Tunnel was partially collapsed.

So getting to the Botanical Gardens had been a pain in her ass, involving a combination of cabs and old-fashioned walking.

And now that she's here, and had paid the outrageously low price of $15 to get in, she is damn well going to enjoy it.

The mid-May sun is just warm enough to make the chill air feel refreshing, not brisk. The spring blooms were in full effect, though it was way too late in the year to catch the full splendor of the daffodils. But the azaleas are gorgeous, with big pink and white and magenta blooms that blanket the beds and make the whole section rosy. She walks through the Conservatory, and the cherry orchard, and is pretty excited to see the peonies. And then she sees the azalea bushes wigging with the little finches and then she hears the “ahhhhh” and watches as a little stick arm tipped in five little stick fingers extends out to touch the bird. The bird flies off, and Karen jumps about a foot straight back.

“Oh my god,” she breathes, as the little tree face peers at her from the low bushes. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod. You’re the little dude with the guys from outer space. The guys with the raccoon that shoots laser guns.”

It blinks big brown eyes at her and gives her the saddest puppy face she’d ever seen. “I am Groot.”

“Hi, Groot,” she replies dumbly. “I’m Karen.”

He seems to think that over, and then nodded. “I am Groot,” he says again, except this time it sounds like the polite voice you’d use when you said, “nice to meet you.”

“So, Groot,” she says, and looks back and forth to make sure no one is noticing her talking to an _alien_. She’s wearing a work dress, but one with an A-line skirt because pencil skirts and bicycles aren’t a great match. She kneels down, pops her tote on the ground and tries to figure out what to do next. “Are you, uh… Are you lost? Do you need help finding your friends?”

Groot looks even sadder if that’s possible. Like full-on Sarah McLaughlin ASPCA commercial sad. For a little dude with no lips and no nose, he has a crazy expressive face. “I am Groot,” he says plaintively. She takes that as a _Yes, I’m lost on a strange planet and I don’t know where my friends are._

“Okay,” she replies. “Okay, okay. Let me think about this for a minute.” So she sits there in the warm spring sun, just trying to figure out what to do with the little guy. It’s not like there’s a local S.H.I.E.L.D office she can go to and speak with the receptionist all, _Hey I found one of your good alien guys in the gardens. Can you help him find his friends?_

She ends up Googling a whole bunch of things but not coming up with any brilliant answers.

“Alright,” she says after a while. “So I’m not sure what to do right now, but I do know you’re really far away from where the action is happening. I think maybe you should come with me, and at least you’ll be back on Manhattan and maybe we can figure out where to go from there. It’s been a long day, I’m starving, and it’s gonna be dark in just a couple hours. You can hide out in my purse. What do you think?”

Groot seems to ponder that for a bit, rubbing his chin and then wandering over to check out her purse. It’s a big tote bag, filled with a lot of detritus like receipts and tampons and three lipsticks. It’s big enough to hold all her work stuff, like her steno book and printouts of her research on the Church (and she’s feeling really guilty about her habit for using paper right about now), and also her Taurus 738 TCP. That lives in its own little compartment, though, that holds the pistol in place with magnets. It’s a bag designed for concealed carry, and it lets her reach around to the side of the bag, slip her hand into the pouch, and draw the gun without any fumbling or searching. After Lewis Wilson (and Wilson was _definitely_ a bad luck name for Karen Page), she bucked up and got a purse that made sure she’d never have to go digging for her weapon again. Her life is way too complicated for that nonsense.

Regardless of the dead trees and handgun, though, the little guy finds it an acceptable transportation option because he opens the mouth of the bag and swings first one leg and then the other inside. Karen slaps a hand over her mouth to contain the sudden giggles – because holy shit _there’s an alien in her purse_ – and hoists the handles over her shoulder. It’s a nylon bag, nice and lightweight, and Groot must’ve weighed about as much as her laptop because it’s not particularly heavy even with him hitching a ride.

“You okay in there?”

There’s a bit of rustling and Groot pops his head out and damn if he isn’t sucking on one of the peppermint starlights she gets from her favorite Chinese place. “I am Grt,” he mumbles around the candy.

“Yeah, okay,” she replies because what else was there to say.

Getting into the city is even harder than getting out. All the cabs seemed to have disappeared. She takes the bus as close to the Willis Avenue Bridge as she can get and then hoofs it across. That lands her in East Harlem, where she buys what she’s pretty sure is a stolen bike off a kid she’s pretty sure should be doing homework.

The city is…not good. Trucks are having a hard time getting in, and she knows from experience that a lot of markets and restaurants are running out of food and necessities. She takes First Avenue all the way down to Midtown and then cuts across on West 59th, and notes the boarded up windows, hard stares, and deserted office buildings the whole way down. Midtown is still blocked off from through traffic, and she can hear the _beep beep beep_ and rumbles of heavy machinery doing its best to clear the streets.

Groot is great, though. No wiggling or anything to upset her balance, which she appreciates because she isn’t normally the kind of knucklehead who rides around on a bike in New York City without a helmet. He pokes his head out a couple times to get a better view, like when they pass the Plaza and Central Park, but mostly he rides with his eyes just sticking barely above the lip of her purse.

She’s pretty sure she also heard him say “Weeee!” when she coasted down a hill. Which is pretty freaking cute.

She finally gets back to her apartment around 6, when the sun is just barely over the skyscrapers. Hauling the heavy-ass bicycle up three flights of stairs isn’t a ton of fun, but she also knows it’d be gone in a hot second if she left it outside.

Groot seems to be pretty excited to be in her apartment. She drops the bag as carefully as she can on the counter and wrangles the bike to lean up against the window. Groot takes the opportunity to stretch his legs, which seems to involve literally stretching his legs until he’s able to climb down and start exploring. She watches him check out her stuff for a bit and then she realizes he might be hungry or thirsty.

“You want some water? Are you, um, hungry? What do you eat, anyhow?”

Groot seems to perk up, and replies “I am Groot!”

“Sure,” she says, and gets down her three-ounce shot glass with the Statue of Liberty on it and fills it with tap water. He sucks that down readily enough. Then she has a pretty good idea, if she says so herself. “I’m gonna mix something up, okay? You don’t have to try it, but maybe you’ll like it? My flowers do.”

So she gets a mixing bowl down, fills it with warm water, and mixes in some sugar and Epsom salts from under her bathroom sink. She dips the shot glass into it and hands it over and watches anxiously as Groot sniffs it and takes a sip. He swishes it around a bit, and then guzzles the whole thing.

“I am Groot!” he exclaims, and burps. And then he clambers up the drawer fronts of her cabinets and dives right into the mixing bowl, throwing his arms over the rim like he’s in a spa tub.

Karen has to giggle because, apparently, her DIY plant food was a pretty good idea. “Just don’t drink that. You don’t know what they fertilize those azalea beds with. You get thirsty, you let me know and I’ll make you a fresh batch.

“I’m gonna wash up, too, and then I’ll see if we can’t let your friends know where you are.” She pats him on his little bark-y head, puts a kitchen towel next to the bowl in case he wants to dry off, and then moves the rose bush from her side table to the window sill. Finally, she takes a long, hot as hell shower to wash off the bicycling sweat and give her time to think.

 


	2. Talking to Badasses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied. There's three chapters.
> 
> You're welcome?
> 
> Written and beta'd by me (and Grammarly). Let me know if an obnoxious typo ruins your reading experience.

She’s eating a grilled cheese and watching YouTube videos with Groot when Frank calls.

She and Groot have already watched a bunch of cell phone videos from the New Incident, where she asked him to point out which people are his friends and he’d reply “I am Groot.” Which was surprisingly helpful. So her notepad is filled with notes like “scar guy” and “green woman (normal size)” and “cosplay frat star.”

Now they’re watching a bootlegged playlist of _Life_ with David Attenborough, which Groot is super into.

“Little busy here, Page,” is how Frank replies when she picks up the call from the blocked number.

“Yeah, I can tell,” she bites back because she can hear the _rat-a-tat-tat_ of not-too-distant gunfire. “I need your help. I need to get in contact with David.”

“What am I, an operator? His wife’s on Facebook. Send her a friend request.”

Karen rolls her eyes, though Frank’s not here to appreciate it and Groot is still focused on the laptop screen. “Yeah, no. I need his help with some sensitive stuff. No something to chat about via Messenger.”

“Sensitive, huh? Hold on.” And then there’s a lot of rustling and heavy breathing and now she’s sure that she’s talking to Frank via an earpiece and clip-on microphone, and that he decided to give her a call while he’s actively fighting someone or something. _Typical_.

“What kind of sensitive we talking about? You planning a surprise birthday party for me, or are you looking into some Deep Throat level shit?”

“Neither, though now I’m going to have to check when your birthday is. It’ll be great. We’ll throw a surprise party with all two of your friends and then scare the shit out of you when we jump from around the corner. Then we’ll round off the night by ending up in the ER with GSWs.”

“Karen, what do you need help with?” The mic picks up some more scuffling and then a big _CLANG!_

“I need to get in touch with some people who have an acronym for a name and no phone number. I found one of their buddies in the park and need to get him back with his people before they return to wherever in space they came from.”

There’s a long silence punctuated by Frank’s deep, regular breaths. “Karen, are you saying there’s an alien in your apartment right now?” It’s the closest to surprise she’s ever heard from Frank.

“Just a little one. And he’s very nice. We’re watching documentaries at the moment. So, can you put me in touch with your sidekick or not?”

“Jesus Christ.” She hears him mutter, and then there are a couple minutes of grunting and the sharper _POP POP POP_ of gunfire. “Look, I’m gonna have to call you back.”

“Okay,” she replies except the phone’s already disconnected. “Rude,” she says, looking at the lit up screen. Groot looks up from the computer screen with two little inquisitive eyebrows raised high and she tells him, “Frank is so rude, sometimes.”

“I am Groot,” he opines, and that’s that.

They’ve finished the _Plants_ episode and are now watching _Insects_ when she gets another call from _Blocked Number_.

“Check your email,” Frank growls and she knows he’s about to hang up so she says “Wait, Frank!”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“First, thank you. Second, be careful. Third, if you could let me know you’re okay when you finish shooting up whoever, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Can do,” he replies and then the line is dead.

She checks her email, and there’s an email that sets off all her internal “this is a phishing/malware/spam/scam email!” alerts from an address that’s just a long string of numbers at gmail.com. But she opens it, and opens the link, and downloads the app the link opens, and authorizes it to send her notifications, and doesn’t panic when a new notification pops up that reads:

     – _You called?_

 _–David?_  

     – _In the digital flesh. What’s up, Ms. Karen Page?_

_–Hi! Nice to meet you! So happy you’re no longer not-dead!_

It never hurts to be polite.

_–Glad to be no longer not-dead. A little birdie told me you need my mad skillz?_

_–Yes! So I don’t know if you saw the videos, but you know how there was that little dude fighting with the raccoon guy last week? I found him in the Botanical Gardens and he’s lost. Can you put me in touch with his friends?_

David replies with a bunch of exclamation marks and ones and then some emojis for good measure like he’s a 13-year-old girl. Then,

_–Pics or it didn’t happen._

So she snaps a picture of Groot sitting legs akimbo in front of her laptop watching YouTube videos and sends it to David. He replies with a bunch of exclamation marks and ones again, and then also some swearing and then also,

 _–OMG, I can’t believe you have an alien in your house!_ _I wish I could bring my kids over to meet him._

Which is so cute.

_–I know, it’s crazy. But Groot just wants to find his friends again. Can you help? I’d be happy to Skype or something with your kids, but is that safe?_

_–Lol_ , he replies.  
         _No. Not even a little bit safe. Okay. So which of the good guys are his friends? The raccoon, right?_

She replies with her list of identified Friends of Groot, and then who she has video confirmation of them fighting alongside.

_–Okay. Hulk, who knows. Probably the most easily contacted of this bunch are shield, Stark, and BW/Romanov. Gimme a minute._

Groot comes over to check in on her, and she gives him a quick recap. Then she thinks to ask, “Um, I took your picture. Is that okay with you? I should have asked.”

Groot asks, “I am Groot?” so she shows him the picture and he seems pretty pleased with it, and then he gets super animated when she shows him the camera in selfie mode. He figures out how to take a picture in like two seconds, and then he starts taking a bunch of selfies. Then he wants to take selfies with her which, okay, she’s just in her pj’s and she’s not wearing makeup and they don’t come out all that flattering but, whatever. It makes him happy.

She gets a new notification and opens it.

 _–Okay. So I’m not crazy enough to go digging around in shield or starktech servers_  
         _but I do have some access to local disaster response stuff and Romanov is scheduled to be in Midtown tomorrow to check in on the cleanup job  
        _ _you know. Gladhand, make nice with the locals, rock the hazmat suit, that sort of thing. What’s Groot think?_

Groot seems to recognize Black Widow’s picture when she pulls it up, though he doesn’t react to her name. Still, he seems pretty positive when she asks him if he wants Karen to talk to her.

 _–Yeah. He seems down with the plan. I can’t take him with me though. Midtown’s a mess  
        _ _and you’re not supposed to be down there without gear. I have my mask from the Bulletin but nothing for Groot_

The _Bulletin_ bought enough filtration masks, eye goggles, and paper suits to outfit its staff in the wake of 9/11. Sending reporters into zones with concrete dust, asbestos, and worse floating in the air required protective gear if you wanted your reporters to stay healthy. Karen’s been part of the team covering the New Incident, so she’s been toting her gear around for more than a week.

So that’s how she ends up in front of what was once Penn Station in the mob of reporters yelling questions over one another. Up in front of her, on a podium decked out in dust-covered bunting, the Mayor is talking about the clean up efforts and reassuring the good people of New York and the world that the New Incident is under control and clean up is in progress. Karen knows from the schedule the City sent out that there are about six more officials on the slate and that Ms. Romanov isn’t speaking at all.

She’s on the podium, though, next to another ultra-competent looking lady with dark, tidy hair and a jawline from a Dutch masterpiece. They’re both calm and serious looking, and Karen has to take a deep breath and shake off the sudden bout of nerves. _This is no time for your inferiority complex, Page. You’ve done way harder things than talk to two women. They’re just badasses. You’ve talked to lots of badasses._

Karen takes notes but doesn’t manage to get her questions acknowledged during the Q&A portion of the briefing. She is here, after all, as part of her job. It’s okay, though, because most of her questions were asked in some iteration or other by the other reporters. No one’s headed back to the office with bupkis for their write up.

Trying to catch the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents before they disappear is a bit of a struggle. She has to weave her way through the dispersing crowd of reporters, and boy is she glad to be five-ten and a former basketball player because she ends up having to throw her elbows around a bit. By the time she makes it to the edge of the crowd, she can see Romanov and the other agent about 50 yards away, being spoken to by some official engineer-type people. Karen pulls her ventilator off and starts waving her hands and yelling.

“Agent Romanov,” she calls again and again. She has a pretty good voice, though she knows it’s kind of high, but come on. Romanov is definitely ignoring her.

“Agent Romanov, _please!_ I have something to show you! Please! It’s urgent!” Cops are manning the barrier, and one of them is telling her to move along. Romanov finally looks up, though, and gestures one of the uniformed men behind her towards Karen.

It’s going to have to be enough.

When he approaches her, Karen says “Finally! Tell Agent Romanov that I have something urgent to show her.”

The guy doesn’t care. “You can show me, or you can show yourself out of here. She’s busy.”

“Look, just tell her that I found her friend, okay? Tell her I found the little guy. Word for word – ‘little guy.’ You got that?”

“Lady, she’s busy.”

“Listen, man. I get that she infinitely outranks you and you don’t want to waste her time and embarrass yourself but _trust me_. If she finds out you dicked me around, you’re going to be way worse off. Please. Just tell her.”

The guy – he’s pretty young, maybe around Karen’s 25 – gives her a suspicious look and she can tell he’s weighing whether to listen to her or not.

“Fine. But if she says no, I’m not coming back over there. You move along and let these guys do their job, yeah?”

“Deal!” Karen smiles brightly because being polite never hurt anyone.

The guy moseys back over at a snail’s pace and waits for Romanov to acknowledge him. It seems like forever but is probably more like ten minutes before Romanov tilts her head and listens to whatever he says. Karen’s message seems to be enough because the guy gets sent back over to her. He tells the cops she’s coming through, and she has to duck around the plastic barriers and scramble to catch up. The rubble’s pretty bad out of the press area, and she’s glad she wore boots today.

The other agent has moved on with the engineers and the bulk of the S.H.I.E.L.D. uniforms, leaving behind just Romanov.

“You said you found the little guy. What does that mean?” Her voice, her eyes, her face, they’re all the same dead-eye look she remembers Frank giving her right before telling her to get the waitress and hide in the kitchen.

Romanov’s playing it cool. _Okay. That’s cool. You were born cool, Page_.

“I, uh—“ Karen stops, takes a breath, starts again. “I was in the Botanical Gardens yesterday. I found your friend, Groot.” And then for further proof, she pulls out the picture she printed off this morning because she’s pretty sure her phone would disappear if she handed it over. She’s not about to do that – it was freaking expensive and she needs it for work.

The picture’s just on normal inkjet paper, nothing fancy. But it shows Groot taking a selfie with Karen, and you can see a little bit of her laptop screen still showing the YouTube page behind them.

Romanov looks it over, face just as dead calm as it always was.

“When was this taken?”

“Um, last night. We watched some documentaries. I couldn’t find contact information for you guys, obviously. And I didn’t want to take him to the police – who knows what they would have done with an alien the way things are right now.”

“And where is he right now?”

This question is a little harder to answer, because, well. She couldn’t leave him alone at home, something could have happened. And it’s not like she could drop him off with Foggy, or get out to Queens and have David watch him, or leave him at the office, so…

“He’s with a friend.”

“A friend.” Romanov’s voice is, if anything, chillier.

“A good friend!” Karen assures her, like that’s going to make a difference. “A good man. He’s been helping, you know, with the clean up.” In a manner of speaking.

“You will take me to this friend and Groot.”

“Okay! Yes! I am very happy to take you to where Groot is. He just wants to find his friends.”

“Now.”

“Okay! I just— I just have to give the signal, and then we’ll go get Groot, and then everything will be fine.”

It’s a good thing Karen already has a plan for this.

 


	3. Saying 'Goodbye'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa, how did I begin and finish my first story since middle school on NYE? Should I blame it on the cab sav? On bingeing The Punisher this week? On my patron saint of Finding the Truth Even if it Hurts, Karen Page?
> 
> Who knows.
> 
> Written and beta'd by me, and Grammarly. Hit me up if my wine-induced typos break you out of the story.

The plan starts off really well.

Well, pretty well.

It’s okay. Nothing’s completely broken. Yet.

What’s that quote? She learned it in A History of War with Professor Gladstone. 

_No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy._

Not that Black Widow or S.H.I.E.L.D. are her enemies. Karen Page doesn’t have enemy-enemies. She has Wilson Fisk, who would definitely want to hurt and kill her if he knew what she did Christmas before last. She has a couple crime bosses she wrote about in the paper, not that it’s resulted in legal charges. And, okay, maybe there’s a bunch of crazy people on the Internet who hate her because she’s pro-gun-ownership, and a bunch of other crazy people on the Internet who hate her because she’s not pro-gun-ownership enough. And there’s also the Reverend, who may or may not know that she’s digging into his cult. But.

You know, she doesn’t have _enemies,_ per se. They’re more like…people who would prefer she went away and/or died.

Anyway, the first part goes swimmingly.

Agent Romanov watches as she makes contact with her “friend.” She’s not sure how Frank would respond to being called Karen’s friend. It’s not like they get brunch, or even visit diners on the regular and chat about work.

_So that’s how I found out about those poor kids – it’s crazy what addicts will do to score a hit, huh?_

_Yeah_ , Frank wouldn’t reply, because they don’t hang out in diners. _I appreciate you letting me know the neighborhood. Really, you know, made killing those motherfuckers a lot easier._

Karen made her plan with David via instant-hacker-messenger, which is what she called the little black app icon on her phone. Before she erased her phone. And her computer. And gave Foggy her external hard drive. And mailed the other external hard drive to herself, c/o the _Bulletin_.

So Karen doesn’t have her phone on her, just her little steno book, two pens, three lipsticks, some makeup removing wipes, some hand sanitizer, a file folder, and maybe some peppermint starlights if Groot left her any. She does have two forms of ID, her little Taurus, and a pair of dressier flats. And also a grocery bag to hold her ventilator and goggles and paper suit. Because this stuff gets everywhere and her dry cleaning bill is already too high.

The way she makes contact is by ruining the shot of three different cable news networks. Agent Romanov and the skeptical S.H.I.E.L.D. guy she first talked to – they don’t have name tapes on their shirts – follow her first physically and then with their eyes when they see where she’s headed. She first walks into the frame of the pretty woman talking seriously into a microphone with a big WHiH logo on it. She’s got a full face-mask on but her hood off and her paper suit zipped halfway down her torso, sooo… Whatever. Karen is kind of nervous ruining the shot, because it’s hard enough being a journalist without jerks ruining their stuff and also, this is her career.

So for the WHiH audience, she stops just behind the pretty lady’s should and adjusts her ventilator. Then she pulls her hood down, reties her ponytail, and then does a little bit more fiddling before pulling her hood back up. Hopefully, it took about 30 seconds.

She does pretty much the same thing in front of the WJBP-TV camera, except they’re a little more used to obnoxious New Yorkers. The cameraman wiggles his fingers when Karen steps into frame and the reporter seamlessly starts pacing to the right to get her out of the picture. So Karen has to do a weird dance while trying not to be a memorable jerk – _Karen Page? I hate that lady! She ruined my coverage on the New Incident and it was_ clearly _on purpose!_ She’s not totally confident she succeeds, but it did take up at least forty-five seconds of her life, so.

The BNN guys are way too British and stolid to care. So she just stands there, staring about twenty degrees to the left of the camera, and then walks away.

There. All done. David should have seen at least one of her performances and let Frank know she was _en route_. All Karen lost is a little bit of dignity. And maybe also credibility.

Could be worse. At least she wasn’t blown up.

Romanov pretty clearly does not like the way Karen made contact. She makes it crystal clear because when Karen rejoins Black Widow and No-Name, she greets her with:

“What _the hell_ was that.”

And Karen is really pleased with herself, because her voice is dead steady when she replies, “That was me making contact with my friend who’s watching out for Groot.”

“Oh, really,” rejoins the now-blonde. Karen liked her better as a redhead, not that her opinion matters.

“Yes,” says Karen and _fuck yeah_ she sounds so calm and cool and _together_. “Really. So let’s go get him. Do you want to walk, or?” Because it never hurts to be polite.

“No,” says Black Widow in a voice that could give grown men nightmares. “I think we’ll drive.”

“Sounds good!” Karen chips back in full secretary mode. _I’m just an annoying former secretary/legal-assistant-now-journalist_. _No, ma’am, I never killed anyone or helped known murderers escape the police and also I definitely don’t know the secret identity of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen_. _I’m from Vermont! No one interesting is from Vermont!_

“Uh-huh,” says Natasha Romanov, who is definitely a bigger badass than Karen. She also clearly doesn’t buy the innocuous act so Karen drops it.

No-Name leads the way, picking a route that avoids most of the demo and clean up crews and also the biggest piles of rubble and the deepest pits. Black Widow clearly wants the rear, so Karen gamely takes the middle. She can hear the other woman speaking softly, probably into a hidden mic. Probably updating her superhero buddies about Karen and Groot and learning everything they possibly can about the journalist named Karen Page.

No-Name leads them down the block and around the corner to what used to be a Wyndham Hotel. It’s in pretty good condition, considering. Only about half the windows are blown in. In front of it, on ground level, is some sort of urban-assault-vehicle-cum-arachnid. It has one-two- _twelve_ legs that apparently let it navigate through the rubble pretty well.

Karen learns this because No-Name takes the driver’s seat, Romanov pushes her into the back seat which already has another guy in uniform in it, and the lady with the tremendous bone structure pins her with a suspicious stare from the passenger seat. Romanov sandwiches Karen in the middle, shuts the door, and then they’re about six feet off the ground and walking – ambulating? – down 8th Avenue.

“You, uh—“ Karen has to clear her throat because it’s pretty dry. “Do you want some directions?”

“Yes,” says Agent Romanov.

“Yeah, sure. Just head towards the Met.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific than that,” says the other ultra-competent S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

“No,” says Karen with the same kind of terrified backbone that let her call James Wesley’s bluff. “I don’t think I need to be. I want Groot to find his friends – he’s a sweet guy who just got a little lost. You want Groot to find his friends. I have a file that will be in my boss’ inbox in three hours if I don’t delete it. So, no. I don’t need to be more specific than that.”

“We can get rid of that file,” says Agent Romanov.

“You could if it were in any of my known email accounts,” rejoins Karen.

There’s silence for a while after that while the crazy _Wild Wild West_ vehicle takes them over the rubble. The roads are pretty much clear by the time they get to the vicinity of Time’s Square, which means No-Name stops the vehicle and they wait in even more silence as the crazy legs retract and giant mesh wheels make contact with the ground.

“So, let’s go over how you found Groot again,” says Agent Jawline.

“Actually,” replies Karen. “My editor advised me to make sure you’ve read our standard legal documents,” and she reaches into her tote and pulls out the folder, “before beginning any sort of interview. I am, as you recall, a member of the press.”

“I see,” says Agent Jawline.

“And if you would like me to sign anything,” continues Karen because if there’s one thing working at Nelson & Murdock taught her, it’s how to bluff her way around paperwork, “I’ll need to have the _Bulletin’s_ legal staff review it first.”

“Your editor is aware that you were harboring a sentient alien?” Romanov’s voice is probably the most neutral Karen’s heard it, and it has a nice smokey quality that makes her ovaries go _Hey!_ Not that Karen’s bi, per se, but she’s definitely towards the middle on the Kinsey scale. Like most people, she’s pretty sure.

“My editor is aware that I was asking some pretty pointed questions about how journalists should deal with adversarial quasi-governmental agencies today after the morning briefing. He’s aware enough that he asked me to check in with him in person tonight. And told me to print these out.

“However,” she continues because, honestly. These S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are _not_ her enemy. “He is not aware of any particulars of the past 36 hours, nor does he know that I’ve ever made contact with an alien life form. Trust me,” and the mental image of Ellison’s face makes her put her hand to her mouth and suppress a  giggle, “I would be chained to my desk if he knew.”

Silence returns to the cabin and they cross over to 5th Ave via East 57th, and then they’re already in the Upper East Side.

Central Park passes as a wall of green to their left, and the rich people houses pass to their right. As is only natural, they are pristine. Some of them even have shiny windows, like they went completely untouched by the recent chaos.

When they get pretty close, Karen tells them to take the 79th St Transverse right into the middle of the park.

It’s different here, more normal. There are people out and about, the typical New York melange of bums, kids, and rich bastards out enjoying the sunshine. You can’t tell that there are people waiting in line for hours at empty food banks, hoping for some food to be brought into the City. You don’t see the destruction, or hear the grinding of heavy machinery. You don’t see the squads of soldiers clearing the subway and sewer and who-knows tunnels of invasive aliens eager to kill innocents.

Granted, the crazy S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicle kind of ruins the ambiance. But at least it was there, for a while.

She counts four different helicopters in the air above their position which, _super subtle, guys_. They follow the small group from the Transverse past the statue of some guy and down the path to the Alexander Hamilton statue.

When they get there, Karen starts calling out “Groot! Groot? It’s me, Karen! I brought the nice blonde lady, Black Widow!” but no one comes out.

Agent Romanov is Not. Amused.

“Where is he?” she says, in that dangerous dead voice.

“Well, maybe if you guys weren’t all _escaped convict_ up there with the helos and you weren’t stomping around down here like a paramilitary force with a grudge, just maybe he’d come out!” Karen can’t help but shout back. Groot is clearly not a child, but he definitely has child-like qualities. For example, he cried when the gazelles died on _Life._ It's stressing her out to imagine all the different reasons why he isn't answering her call.

“Just,” she says, and takes another calming breath. YouTube psychiatrists and yogis all talk about the importance of breathing. Sometimes it helps when the tremors come on. Sometimes it doesn’t.

“Just,” she continues. “Wait _here!”_ And she points right at the base of the statue.

There’s nothing but trees in any direction, but that doesn’t mean much. Groot, after all, is pretty much half-sapling, half-adorable. So she walks through all the flowering trees calling out quietly, “Grooo-ot! Groot? It’s Karen!”

She finds him asleep in the crook of an apple tree, all dressed in white flowers for the spring. She wishes she had her phone on her because, Jesus Christ. That might be the cutest damn thing she’s ever seen.

“Groot,” she says gently, and shakes his little branch foot. “Hey, buddy. I found the people who will take you to your friends. It’s time to get up now.”

Groot opens his big almond eyes and lets out a yawn way bigger than his face seems capable of making. “I am Groot?” he says sleepily.

“Sure are, little buddy.”

“I am Groot,” he replies and Karen holds out her arms and Groot sort of scoots off the branch and she catches him. Placing him on the ground, she marvels that he doesn’t even come up to her knee. _This is insane. I live an insane life._

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are waiting right where she left them, though they aren’t subtle about putting the binoculars away. Groot seems a little skittish, though, until Karen says, “See the woman with the yellow hair? You fought beside her last week, right?”

Groot takes another look at Agent Romanov, hesitating over her outfit but seemingly convinced by her face and voice when the agent says, “Hey Groot. Remember me?”

“I am Groot?” he says, and takes a step forward. “I am Groot!”

Karen actually feels pretty sad watching him skip towards Agent Romanov and the others. Not that she has any right to. This is literally been her goal and her responsibility since she found him. But still…

He’s pretty good company.

Agent Romanov pulls out some fancy-schmancy tablet that Karen’s just _sure_ is ten years beyond consumer tech. She hands it to Groot after a couple button pushes and she overhears:

_“Hey, Groot! Hey buddy! How ya been?!”_

_“Hah! I told you our tiny tree friend was completely unharmed!”_

_“Drax! Get out of the picture! I want to see him.”_

_“I do not understand why you were so worried for the creature. Surely his disappearance did not matter one way or the other?”_

_“Where the hell did you disappear to, you little weed? You had **one job**!”_

And Groot starts telling them all about it, except it mostly goes like this:

“I am Groot!”

Agent Romanov leaves Groot to it and approaches Karen.

“So,” she says and Karen is stunned because she sounds so _normal_ and not at all like Karen’s about to die. “You found Groot.”

“I found Groot,” she confirms and wipes at her face a little. She’s not crying, damnit. “He’s with the right people, and now he can find his friends, and now he can go home. New York is saved, again, ta-da, nothing to see here. I’ll head back to the office, talk about the destruction I saw but temper it with some hope for the future, and _voila_ , everything’s back to normal.”

Agent Romanov looks at her for a while. Karen understands implicitly that some Big Decisions are happening behind that beautiful mask.

“You’ve been held hostage, blown up, kidnapped, worked a trial in defense of a mass murderer, helped bring down a major crime boss, and more.”

“Sounds about right,” replies Karen. It’s all true, though it sounds a little ridiculous listed out like that.

“I think we can keep this between ourselves, don’t you Miss Page?”

Karen watches Groot talk to his friends and says the only thing she can.

“Oh, yes, Agent Romanov. Like it never even happened.”

She wipes at her face again and turns away to settle herself. Eventually, she feels a little tug on the paper suit she’s still wearing and looks around and down to see Groot.

“I am Groot?” he asks, and she sees that he’s holding the printout of the selfie they took last night.

“Oh, man,” she says, and kneels down to sweep him up into a hug. “I am going to miss you too, Groot.”

“I am Groot,” he confirms and they hug for probably a silly amount of time.

Eventually, though, she sets him down with his little printout. He looks at it, then her, then back at it, and then screws his face up. If he were a baby, which he isn’t, she’d say he has to poop.

Instead, a little sprout emerges from the top of his head and blooms. It a beautiful glowing blue flower that looks like a psychedelic daisy mixed with a passionfruit flower, and it makes Karen cry for real this time. Just big, sloppy tears with a drippy nose and a tight throat. He hands it to her and she puts her hand over her mouth to hold in all her crazy.

“I am Groot,” he tells her so, so seriously.

“I’m really happy to have met you, too, and you’re welcome. I’m so glad we found your people.”

He reaches up, pats her on the face, and puts her tears in his mouth. It makes him smile.

Karen smiles back.

Then, he’s walking away with Agent Romanov and Agent Jawline and No-Name and the Other Guy and it’s just Karen and the bums and the kids and the rich bastards in the clearing with a statue of Alexander Hamilton.

The sound of the helicopters fades away, and Karen walks off her melancholy by detouring through Central Park until she gets parallel with the _Bulletin_  offices. She goes to the _Bulletin_ , deletes the email in her outbox, lets Ellison see her face.

It’s just another day in New York, after all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, no! I lied again!
> 
> I lied because there's an epilogue.
> 
> Don't worry. Frank's in it.


	4. Epilogue

The day ends. The next one, too. 

Karen takes Groot’s flower and puts it in a water glass on the window sill. It doesn’t glow as brightly as it first did, but it’s still really perky-looking and so amazing. She has a _space flower_ on her _windowsill_.

Eventually, Karen Page is pretty sure she’s returned to her routine. As much as an investigative journalist living in a half-demolished city can have a routine.

Foggy calls on Thursday.

“So,” he says. “I still have a hard drive labeled ‘KP’ sitting on my entryway table. Think someone might want it back?”

“Someone sure does,” she replies because even if it’s just a backup Foggy doesn’t need that kind of potential danger in his apartment. 

“I’ll take that under advisement. How does, say…brunch in my swanky new apartment sound?”

“Depends,” she answers with a laugh. “Are there going to be pancakes and mimosas?”

“Psh,” he says. “As if Marci would let me host brunch without mimosas.”

So Sunday morning, Karen takes her probably-stolen bike and heads north into the area where Hell’s Kitchen is being gentrified into more of the Upper West Side. She’s glad that Marci is going to be there because, while they certainly are not girlfriends, Karen has never wanted to be anything but respectful of Foggy’s relationship. And Karen feels like hanging out with Foggy alone is okay sometimes, but most of the time it should include Marci.

Foggy’s doorman gives her the stink eye when she brings her bike inside, but lets her store it in the back when Foggy confirms that he’s expecting her. Marci opens the door with a “Page, you’re looking well” and “Foggybear! Your second favorite blonde is here!”

Karen catches up with them over the pancakes and mimosas. Well, Marci has a vegetarian omelet and half a grapefruit but she also looks like _that_ on a Sunday morning, so.

Foggy is technically her lawyer because he made her sign an agreement with Hogarth, Chao & Benowitz and hand him $20 dollars. Marci works for the same firm, so Karen hands her another twenty and tells her “Thank you for agreeing to represent me.”

“You _should_ thank me,” Marci rejoins, “as I normally don’t work for valet tips.”

But Karen’s story seems to be all the payment either require. She can’t stand the idea of lying to Foggy, of letting lies and half-truths come between them. Not since Matt. So she tells them about the Church of the Saved, a little, and then she tells them about Groot.

The two lawyers exclaim at all the right moments and ask all the right questions, and Marci smacks Foggy lightly when he asks whether Black Widow is scary-hot or too-scary-to-be-hot. Karen tells him it’s both.

“I _cannot_ believe you had an alien superhero spend the night in your apartment and you didn’t have me over,” says Foggy.

“I can’t believe you don’t have the selfies! Even if you didn’t want to sell them – which _come on,_ you could make _millions_ – you should at least still have the proof around!”

“What she said,” Foggy agrees.

Karen leaves around one, setting a leisurely pace back to her apartment. The City’s come a long way in a week. Trucks are getting on and off the island more regularly, and a lot of the people have lost that half-angry, half-helpful attitude. There are piles of debris lining the streets, but they’re tidy piles organized by neighbors trying to clean up their city. There are new windows going in everywhere, and food on the market shelves, and restaurants advertising “50% OFF for Clean Up Crews – Just Show Badge at Register.”

It’s nice. It’s the spirit of togetherness that New York is so famous for, post-disaster. Karen – and the rest of the City – can only pray these disasters happen a _little_ less frequently.

 

:::

 

Back home, she’s feeling pretty lazy. So she outlines an article for next Wednesday’s edition about how the need for all this manual labor has helped a lot of guys just out of prison get a good start. It’s half feel-good, half our-system-is-broken, but luckily Ellison is the kind of editor who lets her write the truth instead of party soundbites. But that only takes about 30 minutes and she doesn’t want to transcribe the interviews just yet, so she fools around on YouTube for a bit and ends up watching another episode of _Life._

By eight, the soup in the crock-pot is smelling _really_ good and she’s finished all the other episodes of _Life_. She’s just dishing up a bowl when she hears a _rat-a-tat-tat_ on her front door.

She grabs her Taurus and checks her phone. Her smart camera-doorbell thing shows a bulky man with a shaved head and a bushy beard standing in front of her door, sort of slouchy and twiddling the fingers of his right hand. And it’s embarrassing, but she doesn’t recognize him at _all_ until she hears “Karen, you home?”

“Frank!” she cries and opens the door and there he is, in the flesh.

“Evening, ma’am,” he greets her. “I was told to check in with you when I finished up.”

“You’re here!” Which, _duh_ , but she also hasn’t seen him except for those few moments when she introduced him to Groot. And he was wearing a hoodie and a hat, then.

Tonight, he’s wearing his black and boots as usual, but his head is shaved down to a zero all around and she can see he’s trimmed his beard since last week. It’s a bit tidier, a bit shorter, but still full and thick. The look is very different from his hobo hair, or his revenge hair – sort of an older Italian mechanic/longshoreman/tough guy look. Like maybe he has a motorcycle, but he only rides it on the weekends. It’s okay.

“Sure am. Can I, uh, can I come it?”

Karen tucks her hair behind her ear to hide her blush and steps back to let him into her little apartment. “Yes, of course. Hey, you hungry? I’ve got beef soup!”

“I could eat. Thank you very much,” he says because he’s a very polite boogeyman when he's not talking on the phone.

Karen adds another ladle of soup to the bowl and brings it to him along with some buttered toast. Then she serves herself some, pops the caps off two beers, and they sit down and eat dinner together.

It’s the first time she’s really sat down and eaten with Frank. The Karen-Page-bait-diner trip didn’t involve anything other than coffee and gunfire.

Karen thanks him for watching Groot for her while they eat, which he sidesteps by telling her it “wasn’t any trouble at all, ma’am.” Karen asks where they went. David and she and Frank had all agreed that Groot needed to be moved from Karen’s apartment in case their plan went sideways.

Frank fidgets a bit before he answers, which isn’t unusual but also Karen gets the impression that he’s embarrassed.

“We, you know,” he starts and then eats another mouthful of soup. “We went out.”

“Sure,” she replies, “but where? Or did you take him to one of your lairs?” she teases.

“You know damn well I don’t got no _lairs_.” Frank scrubs a hand over his head and then down into his beard. “I told you. I took him out, showed him some of the city.”

“Uh-huh,” she says in a tone dripping in skepticism. “Any parts in particular?”

“You know, around.” And he starts methodically downing the soup and Karen drops the topic for fear of chasing him off.

“You want more? I’ve got a ton and you look like maybe you haven’t had a cooked-from-scratch meal in…a couple years. It’s no trouble.”

“Yeah, sure. That sounds very nice, ma’am. Thank you.”

So Karen serves him up another bowl and finishes her own. When he’s a little less fidgety – Frank is rarely still and she’s not sure if it’s the brain injury or if he was always this way – she tries another sally.

“So, you’ve been fighting in the tunnels the past couple weeks. Want to tell me about that?”

Frank shoots her a suspicious stare, eyes narrowed and head cocked. “Maybe, maybe not. You gonna write about me?”

“Just some quotes, and I’ll name you an anonymous source. I’ve already talked to a couple teams from the NYPD and had a supervised interview with some National Guard guys. It’d be nice to get answers that didn’t come from a PR department.”

Frank mulls that over a bit, twitching the fingers of his right hand and then catches her eyes with his. Karen’s getting more used to having that soul-stripping gaze pinned on her, so it doesn’t make her break out in fear sweat. Okay, so her heartbeat does pick up a little and her palms get a little moist but she realized a while ago that response doesn’t come from fear.

“What the hell,” he finally says. “Anything for you.”

Which definitely does not help the heart rate or the sweaty palms thing.

Frank talks about clearing the abandoned railway tunnels running under Hell’s Kitchen and branching out all over the island. She learns he first went in two days after the New Incident after watching some of the news coverage and seeing for himself how overworked the official teams were. He talks a little bit about his weaponry and a little bit about the alien weaponry – “one thing’s for sure, you don’t want to be wearing NVGs when one of those laser cannons goes off. Damn, they’ll blind you so bad you’ll be walking around with a cane like your lawyer friend.” Mostly he talks about how hard it was to track down the squads of invaders – “they knew damn well their plan went to shit in pretty short order, and then it was every alien scumbag for himself.”

Karen gets some great stuff, although she just takes notes and doesn’t even bother recording anything. Frank wouldn’t like that. She wets his whistle with a second beer, but their interview/conversation winds down by nine thirty.

“Well,” he says as he tips the longneck and downs the last slug of lukewarm beer. Karen averts her eyes, because while the mechanic hair isn’t her favorite it’s still _Frank_.

“You get what you need, Karen?” he asks, and ferries their dishes to the sink to rinse them out.

“Yeah,” she says and then clears her throat because that came out a little too breathy. “Yeah, that was amazing. Thank you so much, Frank. Not just for the interview, but for putting me in contact with David, and taking care of Groot, and helping me get him home. And, you know, all those other times you’ve saved my ass.” She lets out a nervous little laugh.

On the one hand, she feels like they’re past this but on the other, she never knows where they stand.

“Hey,” he says and he’s back in her space and tipping her chin up so their eyes are level. “You don’t need to thank me for that, for any of that. You and me? We’re beyond that kind of stuff, yeah? You understand?”

“Yeah,” she says again and then thinks _Fuck it._

And she throws her arms up around his neck and his arms come around her chest and they’re giving each other a nice, solid, warm, _human_ hug. Hugging Frank like this, when he’s clean and unhurt and not in some sort of immediate crisis is _nice_. It’s so nice that Karen has to bite back the rising flood of tears.

Instead, she sort of buries her face in the side of his head, and he returns the gesture. They’re the same height, though of course Frank is significantly bulkier and also she’s pretty sure his arms are longer.   They stand there for long moments, breathing and listening to one another’s breaths _hush hush hush_ in their ears and it’s the best hug Karen has had since Kevin was alive.

Eventually, though, Frank gives her back a quick rub and withdraws and Karen plays it cool like she’s not about to cry.

“I’ll, uh,” he says and then _he_ clears _his_ throat. So maybe Karen’s not the only one who needed that. “I’ll try to be more regular about checking in. You know, letting you know I’m out there doing my thing.”

 _Taking out the trash_ , she thinks _, yeah. I know._

“I’d like that, Frank. I worry about you, pretty much all the time. I like knowing that you’re okay, okay?”

“Okay,” he agrees and it’s killing her because his face has the same kind of soul-searching openness it had back in the elevator. Back when she pulled away from him and before he made the leap.

“Okay,” she says again and she follows Frank down the short hall and watches as he pulls his hood up and opens the stairwell fire door. He pauses with the door half-open, and calls out without looking back at her.

“You take care of yourself, Karen Page.”

“You, too, Frank Castle. I’m gonna be really pissed at you if you go ahead and die on me.”

“Back at you,” and then he’s gone and Karen closes her door and throws the lock and the deadbolt and the chain _and_ the top bolt and then leans up against the door and wipes the tears from her face.

 

:::

 

Tuesday, she heads into the office like normal. She had a really good day off, and got about half her articles drafted for the upcoming week.

Okay, so it wasn’t technically a day _off_ but she’s feeling pretty refreshed anyway.

She checks her mailbox on the way out and stuffs the likely-looking envelopes into her purse to check out at work. Probably, it’s just bills but hey! At least the mail’s running regularly again.

She splurges on a cappuccino from the coffee cart manned by the hot Australian guy and sips it in the elevator. She grabs the papers out of her cubby and drops her purse off at Ben’s desk.

Thirty-five minutes later, she’s confirmed her schedule for the day, cleared out her email, skimmed the office memos, and is opening her mail. That’s when she finds the weird envelope.

Okay, so the envelope itself is a perfectly normal double-paned envelope. But the contents of it are absolutely bizarre.

There’s a hand-written note that says,

      _Hi Karen,_

_Groot wanted to thank you again for helping him get back to us._

_We were really worried about the little guy. So thanks from all of us, Rocket especially._

_Groot also wants to say you should cut the flower head off, leave the leaves, and drop it in some water for a while. He’s not great at timeframes right now, but I’d say maybe a couple weeks?_

_Thanks again,  
_ _StarLord_

_P.s. Rocket would like you to set the record straight and make sure people know he’s **not** a raccoon. (He totally is)_

 

And then there’s a check from Navy Federal and a company called “Allied Solutions” based in Washington D.C. Karen’s name is on the recipient line, and a five-figure sum is filled out in the payment areas.

Karen stares at the check for a long, long time. It feels like a serious moral dilemma, what to do about this check. She’s certainly thinking about it a lot longer than, say, she thought about whether or not to pull the trigger on James Wesley.

On the one hand, this is pretty clearly hush money. And Karen Page invented her career out of whole cloth on the basis of _not_ accepting hush money, or bowing to pressure, or letting dogs lie. Karen Page is about the _truth_ , even if the truth sucks and it makes it hard for her to reconcile her beliefs with the way the world actually is.

On the other hand, she’s seen reward posters in the Upper West Side for lost dogs with amounts like $3500 on them. If some rich bastard is ready to shell out that kind of dough on his daughter’s Pomeranian, why shouldn’t Karen Page benefit from a reward for returning a lost alien? Like, she did a _really_ good job taking care of him and making sure he got to the right people in a timely fashion.

Not for the first time, she really wishes Matt were around. He was a really shitty friend for a long time before he went into that building, but he’d know just the right kind of moral angle to tackle this with.

She’s still struggling with her dilemma, staring at the rectangle of paper in her hands, when Ellison barges into the office and shuts the door behind him.

“ _What did you do?”_ he practically hisses.

“Do? Me? I didn’t do anything, honest! The Church—“

“Not the Church! S.H.I.E.L.D. What did you do with S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“Why?” she asks, “What do they want?”

“‘What do they want,’ she says,” Ellison grumbles and throws his hand up to catch at his face, like he’s so frustrated the top of his head is going to come off. “Are you serious?! You don’t know what you did?” And now he’s rubbing at his bald spot and that can’t be good for his remaining hair.

“Well, I mean, I can guess?”

“‘I can guess,’” he sneers, and then has to walk back and forth a couple times in front of the desk.

“Okay,” he says when some of the manic energy has disappeared. “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. Obviously, you take the interview. Cancel whatever you were planning on doing today because we only have—“ he checks his watch “— _shit_ , we only have twenty-two hours before you have to be there and you can’t go in blind. Take the day, do whatever you need to prepare. Raid the archives, watch the videos, read the entirety of WikiLeaks, _I don’t care_. I need your question list by six p.m. for my approval.”

“Christ, Ellison, slow down. _What are you talking about?”_

“The interview, Page! The interview!”

“What interview?!” she practically shouts.

“What do you mean— No, forget it. You clearly know nothing.

“We just got a call from S.H.I.E.L.D. They said that Scarlet Witch has agreed to do an exclusive interview with the _Bulletin_ , but only if Karen Page does the interview. I don’t know _what you did_ —“ and here he points a threatening finger at her “—but I could _kiss you_ right now if I didn’t want to end up fired.”

“Oh,” says Karen. “Oh, shit! I have to start researching!”

 

:::

 

That night, she lays out her clothes for the interview in the morning, washes her hair, and carefully packs her bag. She also trims the bottom stem of the flower, reluctantly cuts the bloom off, and puts the stem with its two leaves in a clean cup of water on her windowsill.

The flower, she layers between two sheets of parchment paper and tucks it and the note from StarLord carefully between the pages of a coffee table book on Vermont.

She endorses the check and puts it in her wallet for deposit later.

 

:::

 

Two weeks later, she checks the little stem with its two little leaves and is delighted to see three thready little roots spreading out in the glass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it.
> 
> Maybe. Could be. I know what Frank and Groot did to kill time between being introduced and Karen finding Groot in the apple tree. Maybe I'll write that up.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed!


End file.
